Surrounded by a ring of windwheel asters, this corner of the Serenitea Pot was one of the few places where one could catch a breath. Fields of orange flowers undulated in the breeze, spreading like a pool of melted sunset across barren soil. A few Mondstadt refugees bent down to harvest the petals—raw materials for ration supplements approved by the committee, carrying the faint, sweet memory of home.
"Huh?" A middle-aged man with a bulbous nose paused, his rough fingers suspended in mid-air. "These flowers... spinning like something's possessed?"
Jingyi was squatting at the edge of the field, her fingertips brushing against a clump of serrated wild grass as she softly explained to the children gathered around: "This is a wolfhook. If you crush the leaves and apply them to a wound, it stops the bleeding..." Before she could finish, she snapped her head up. The entire flower field was radiating outward from an invisible center; hundreds of windwheel aster blossoms were spinning counterclockwise against all reason, the friction of their petals producing a dense, eerie rustling sound, as if countless tiny gears were grinding out of control. Her small frame swayed, and she instinctively steadied herself by grabbing a nearby rock, the pupils behind her lenses suddenly contracting.
Chapter 31